Project 365

Hiking at Bukit Tabur from Amalia on Vimeo.

This was my 6th visit to Bukit Tabur. I still can’t believe that this beautiful hill is just less than 30 minutes from the center of KL. It is definitely a challenging hill to hike, as you need to climb the rocks and walk along some dangerous vertical cliffs. But it’s so worth it and I love it.

"You don’t understand our cultures," said a close friend of mine when I was suddenly lost in our conversation about Indonesian/Malay cultures. While he perceived this as a joke, it really hit hard on me. How could he say such a thing? How daring was he to even say that! It was just too hurtful to hear it and I didn’t think he understood why I took his particular comment so seriously.

Being a third-culture kid, I do understand that I am a product of different cultures. I understand that I may not be able to understand those cultures because sometimes only bits and pieces of them were taken. However, some times third-culture kids want to feel belong too. I want to feel that I am belong. For God sake, I am an Indonesian, albeit not a real one since I’ve only lived there for three years during High School. But sometimes you just don’t want to feel being cornered as a fake Indonesian all the time. When you don’t understand the jokes or some phrases being thrown at you, at the very least you’d want to know what their meanings. But if people keep on cornering you all the time; if people keep on telling you that you are a fake Indonesian and you don’t understand Indonesian culture without even explaining the meanings of those jokes or phrases; how are you going to learn to be a real Indonesian?

Or maybe I should just stop trying to be an Indonesian. Just go with the flow and be just me.

And this is one of the many reasons why I always hesitate to go back to Indonesia for good. Is Indonesia home for me? No. Not yet.

Chilling out from one cafe to another with some friends… 🙂

It was 8 years ago — 2004 to be exact — that for the time I designed and developed a website especially dedicated for my high school friends. At that time, static websites were still very much popular and many people still relied on free website hosting that was equipped with ads in each page.

The original website that I designed underwent major makeover two years later, although it’s still static. I had been wanting to make it dynamic, but I didn’t have time yet. The plan was always postponed that I finally gave up on paying its domain altogether.

Time passed by and I completely forgot about the existence of this website. It was only today that I encountered this website again! I couldn’t believe that the website could still be perfectly viewed with today’s web browser! 🙂 Hoorah to me! 🙂

I’m currently reminiscing about the good old days through this website. Such a lovely memory.

I have just discovered this video! It’s been awhile since I watched a TEDTalk and wrote it here on my blog. After watching this talk delivered by Sherry Turkle, I decided to quickly write it here.

I have complained a lot in this blog about the Internet, gadgets, and social networking sites which have done a great deal in changing the way we, the humans, interact with each other. To be honest, they are not entirely bad. Thanks to social networks, I can be connected again to my long lost friends in elementary school or high school. I remember about a half a decade ago, I used to be the one who searched for them on the Internet and made a mailing list group so that we could keep in touch. When only few people used Friendster, I told everyone to create an account there. When Facebook gained popularity in the US (but not in other countries), I told all of my close friends to move to Facebook :P. I was busy making sure that although they’re not physically close to me anymore, I could at least reach them online.

But now, every single person can be easily reached. Virtually reached, that is. Everyone is on Facebook, Twitter, YM, LinkedIn, GMail, aaah…. you name it! People, including me, are addicted to it. Every time we encounter something, we update our status. We no longer call our closest friends to tell them about it, but updating a status seems to be the coolest way to go about it. Hi-by friends or even strangers suddenly become our best “virtual listeners”. Friends or families are busy with their smartphones while having dinner together. It is absurd, if you really think about it (I’m criticizing myself too, you know!). We spend less time to have a real and deep conversation with people because we spend too much time online with people who we think they care (but they are not, really).

So, this talk by Sherry Turkle  is exactly what has been running through my mind for the past few months or years — except that, she explains it more beautifully and persuasively than I do. One thing that struck me is this:

When I ask people “What’s wrong with having a conversation?” People say, “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with having a conversation. It takes place in real time and you can’t control what you’re going to say.” So that’s the bottom line. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body — not too little, not too much, just right.

This is the major difference between real conversation and “virtual conversation” (texting, email, etc). Real conversation cannot be perfected with technology. There is no rewind or undo button. We can appear as perfect as we can virtually. We can appear as the person we always want to be virtually. We can pretend to care when we have a hard time to show our care to other people in the real world. We get to do things that we cannot do in real life.

What’s more is that, technology seems to be the thing we turn to when we are most vulnerable. As Sherry puts it: “The feeling that ‘no one is listening to me’ make us want to spend time with machines that seem to care about us.” Technology makes us feel connected, somehow. The moment that we are alone, have nothing to do, waiting for the bus, or have nothing to talk about with the person next to us, we immediately try to reach our small device.

For me, social networks are important to keep in touch with friends that are thousand miles apart from me. But to those who are within few km distances, I’d rather have a meaningful one-to-one conversation over coffee, lunch, or dinner. That’s the only way to understand and learn about my friends. No amounts of emails, Skype, and YM messages can beat real conversation. It is hard to loosen up my addiction to social networking, but at least I know that I still prefer the old traditional way of interacting. With the loneliness plaguing my life, talking to friends online in any way cannot heal this feeling. In order for it to disappear, I need friends who are physically here, talking to me. While some chats and emails did help in motivating and encouraging me, all of them are temporary. They are like medicines that can heal the pain but unfortunately, they cannot cure the actual disease.

I’m not suggesting to ban social networks and abandon them all together. But what I’m suggesting is to spend more meaningful time with the people around us. Talk to them. Know them well. Socialize. At least, put our smartphones away when we are with them. I do get annoyed by it when everyone is with their phones!!! 🙂 So, let’s do myself and everyone a favor that when you sit down with your friends, put your mobile phones away. Prove yourself that you can ignore this device, even though it’s merely an hour long.

One day, my friend Nabilah asked me if I would like to join the aqiqah of her niece. This would be a great opportunity to meet locals and it would definitely be my first exposure to a Malay culture. So with no hesitations, I immediately said yes.

We drove to the nearby state, Selangor. Her sister’s house is located near the city of Klang. The house was in the middle of nowhere. It was in a village (or a kampung, as Malaysians say it). This was my first time going into a traditional Malay house. It was interesting. The house is two-storey. The living  room and bedrooms are located in the upper part of the house. There is another living room in the bottom part of the house, with a slightly lower ceiling. At the back of the house, there’s a big kitchen and a bathroom. Just like in Iran, the toilet is located outside of the house.

When we arrived there, we were welcomed with lots of foods, as usual. It was a buffet. They put a tent outside where guests can sit and eat. Apparently, we missed out the actual aqiqah, so we were only there to eat and mingle with Nabilah’s extended families. Interestingly, Nabilah’s brother-in-law is a Malaysian of Javanese origin. Long time ago, many Javanese people came to Malaysia. Since I can’t speak Javanese, I can’t really figure out whether their Javanese language is the same as ours — but they can speak Javanese. Nabilah also said that their Malay accent is a bit different, perhaps more medok than the standard one :P.

I really enjoyed being in a kampung. It was very quiet, peaceful, and green. It was a nice escape from the noisy KL. I also forced myself to speak more Malay with Nabilah’s family. I really want to master it hahaha. It’s easier to mingle with the locals if you can speak their language — even though, yes, Malaysians generally understand Indonesian language just because they watch a lot of our sinetrons.

The next cultural experience for me would be the traditional Malay wedding. I was already invited to Nabilah’s friend’s wedding in September. I’m looking forward to it 🙂

Alhamdulillah for everything 🙂

When I was in Tehran, I was hosted by a very nice Iranian family. The experience was unforgettable and I had one of the most amazing moments with them. On two separate occasions, two of the family members came for a visit to KL. So today, I met one of them and showed her and her friend around KL.

We went to Chinese and Indian temples in Chinatown. It was my first time going to these temples so it was very interesting. I became a tour guide “on the spot”. I went to Chinatown 2 years ago when I was in KL and I barely remembered my way around. It was good to refresh my memory and at the same time explore this city!

When I was in the Chinese temple, I struck in a conversation with a Chinese-Malaysian man. He’s in his mid-50s I would say. He had lived in Australia and New Zealand before and loved to explore. He told me that he was the one who discovered a new species of Rafflesia. The plant is called Rafflesia Azlanii. I think this was the coolest thing EVER!! 🙂 When asked why he named it Azlanii, he said he had a fight with his Professor friend about it. Apparently it was named after his friend’s wife. He said that his daughter also recently found another species of Rafflesia, which was named Rafflesia Sumeii.

This is the reason why I love talking to strangers 🙂 You never know what kind of experiences they have encountered! It’s just so cool! He really made my day!

I have no mood to write anything these days. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I decided to post some pictures that I took for the past one month ;).

Leaves have started to fall in Eindhoven, after few weeks of sunny and warm weather. Usually, we’d take our gloves out by the month of October. But the weather has been very warm lately. Does that mean winter would be worst and colder than last year? 😐

I was invited to a Korean lunch at a friend’s house. I forgot what this dish was called but I always loved it! This was the second time I ate it.

Baby Nolan and baby Mentari are two of my favorite kids 🙂 I’ve watched them grow ever since they were born and it’s always impressive and exciting to see them growing and doing their things for the first time :).

 

Last weekend, Jessie and I went to the McDonald’s near Best. This particular McD got a Rock & Roll theme. There was a huge statue of Michael Jackson on its parking lot. I saw lots of pictures, flowers, and messages from his fans near the statue. We were checking out these memorabilia, when we saw a teenage boy crying with his family trying to console him. That was my first time to actually see with my own eyes someone crying because of the death of a celebrity. How stupid does that sound?! Isn’t it ironic that people don’t believe in God but they believe in these fake looking celebrities that they have no relations to and have no idea whether these celebrities are honestly a good person or not…! A strange world we live in…

This picture is not actually mine, but this one was taken at the Welcoming Party organized by PPI/e (Indonesian Student Association). I had a great time there, meeting new Indonesian students. I gave a short presentation about Dutch culture. It was OK, I think I should have done it much better than that. I prepared it in less than 8 hours before the event itself haha. But it was a relief to know that people found it useful.

I used to complain about having no girlfriends here in Eindhoven. I’m sure I’ve written about this a lot in my blog. During my first one year, most of my friends were guys. I’m fine with having them as friends, of course. But they’re different than girls, especially in terms of “curhat”. Not a lot of guys are good listeners I have to say :P. I also love to have friends to sleep over at my place so we can talk all night long. We can’t do that with guys, can we? 🙂

I basically felt so lonely, especially when I was so used to having housemates and roommates for years! It was not until the second and third year that I had girlfriends. But there’s always a downside: none of my friends were Muslims or practicing Muslims. I felt extremely lonely during Ramadan because I would usually be the only girl out of all men sitting at the Mosque’s dining hall. I didn’t feel comfortable at all.

This year’s Ramadan is a bit different, though! I met a number of Dutch converts at the Mosque during the ifthar last week. I never met a convert before so it was a great opportunity for me to ask a lot of questions! (it’s so me, right?! LOL. Always curious about stuff). I met one of them again during the taraweeh prayer yesterday and one of the girls invited me to her house for ifthar! I would NEVER say no to that wonderful offer hahaha. A free ifthar and a chance to know them better — a once in a lifetime opportunity, right?! 😉

There were 2 other Dutch converts invited (so there were three converts in total). Most of them just converted to Islam for only 1-3 years and what’s amazing was that they all wore a hijab! I actually thought that they’ve at least been a Muslim for 5 years, because wearing a hijab (especially in the time of Islamophobia) was a big thing! But it turned out that they were “early” converts. What’s also interesting was that, although two of them were married, they came to Islam because they wanted to, not because of love or any other reasons.

I asked them how their family reacted upon knowing that their daughter was a Muslim. Only one of them had told the family and she said it was very hard for them. She hadn’t tell them about the hijab yet — she would do it one step at a time. Please note that Dutch parents are the most “easy going” parents in the world. As long as their children are happy, they’d accept their children’s decision. I have a number of friends whose husband converted to Islam due to marriage and their parents didn’t object both the marriage and conversion. So I was a bit surprised to know that the family of these girls would not accept their conversion to Islam. They told me that their parents were a practicing “hardcore” Christian and perhaps that’s one of the reasons why their parents found it unacceptable. Anyhow…

The host, Jacky, turned out to be a really EXCELLENT chef! She cooked a lot of foods. Not just foods, but DELICIOUS foods. The soup, biryani rice, raita (yum!!!!!), samousa, and some fruit deserts. My stomach were about to explode eating sooooooo much foods!

I had a lot of fun. It was no doubt the best ifthar I ever had in the Netherlands — ever since I arrived here 3 years ago. I start to wonder why all the good things always come during my last year of living here?! But anyhow, we’re planning to meet up again during Eid insya Allah! 🙂

Meeting a Muslim convert makes me feel so grateful and blessed that I’m a born Muslim. Often time we take this for granted, don’t you think? It’s definitely something that we should be grateful about. Having lived in a non-Muslim majority country for more than 7 years, the time has come for me to live in a Muslim-majority country again. Without a doubt, I’ve enjoyed living here or anywhere in the world. In terms of religion-wise, I’ve learnt and known Islam much better than if I’d in a Muslim country. But with Islamophobia sweeping across Europe, it’s time for me to go back to the country where I can practice my religion freely and where I can wear hijab without being the center of attention. It hurts to constantly hear Islam — my faith and my way of life — to be insulted and ridiculed again and again. Do insult my race or my nationality, but not my religion.

Thank you, ya Allah for always giving me reminders, giving me the best experience of my life, and answering my prayers. I cannot be any happier.